How do I get a national insurance number?

Incorrect.

In article , Alex Heney writes

I think Humberside is defunct and North Humberside is now part of the East Riding, not sure about South Humberside though.

Mike

My husband recently moved over from the States. I called our local job centre plus to make an appointment, before he arrived. The Bristol centre was booked up for 3 months in advance! We managed to get a slot in cardiff after 6 weeks. Its all pretty slow but worth asking them to check other offices if yours is fully booked too. The appt letter tells you what to bring with you. We were then told he would recieve his number after 4 weeks, which actually turned into 7 weeks. They said he could work with no NI number, but would be on a higher tax code until it was sorted. The only problem with that was that lots of employers wouldnt touch him without one. Good luck

lisa

Not now anyway. Still doesn't stop him working

Temporary NI numbers have been stopped but lack of one doesn't stop anyone with the right to work starting a job.

"National Insurance numbers

Importance of National Insurance numbers

The HMRC National Insurance Contributions Office issues National Insurance (NI) numbers to those approaching 16 years of age and to those working or claiming benefit so that NICs and credits can be correctly recorded on each person's National Insurance account, income tax and other records.

You should ask your employee for their NI number and they must let you know what it is, if known, when you ask for it. It is essential that you show the full and correct NI number on all documents on which you record NICs. Anyone who does not have an NI number must apply for one when they start work by contacting their local Jobcentre Plus office.

The NI number is important because it helps to link the information you will send us at the end of the year to your employee's National Insurance account, income tax and other records. This in turn helps to protect your employee's entitlement to benefits such as basic State Pension. Use the correct National Insurance number

The HMRC will no longer accept 'temporary' National Insurance numbers, for example TN220157M for a male born on 22 January 1957. This applies no matter which method you use to submit your forms and returns (for example paper, online) so in all cases you should try to obtain the correct National Insurance number."

It's obviously changed in the last four years then.

I ended up with two NI numbers when another tax office decided I needed to fill in a tax return and sent me one with a different NI number. (This was for a tax return I'd already filed and paid the due tax for)

I'm hoping I'm back to one NI number now - The 2005-06 tax return I didn't get two to fill in. The previous year to that I just threw the second one in the bin. The year before that I rang up and was assured that the duplicate record had now been deleted

Tim.

Anyone who thinks they have or have had more than one NI number needs to check that all their contributions have been transferred and credited to one NI number.

Lack of NI number makes no difference to the tax code to be used.

I'd be very surprised if anything had ever been contributed to my second number. Nobody (including me) knew it existed until I got a (second) tax return to fill in after about 10 years of work. I can't remember now whether I'd been given a second tax reference as well.

But none of my employers have ever been given anything other than my real NI number which I've had since I was about 15 IIRC.

Tim.

So why could a second NI number be issued? If you didn't ask for a second one then the only reason I could think that someone would create one is to allocate some unallocated credits.

Why would a second tax office send out a second tax return for a year that I'd already filed, paid the due tax and had the letter to say "you have nothing more to pay"?

And why keep sending a second return in subsequent years after I'd told them I was already getting a tax return to do?

Someone, somewhere must have decided that there were two Tim Woodalls living at my address. I have no idea why they could possibly have come to that conclusion. I only had one job in the year this started. (This year I didn't get a second tax return so I'm hoping it's all sorted now)

Tim.

HMRC are managed by incompetents and employ totally unsuitable people. Whoever issued a second tax return would not have checked that there was a another one issued and submitted.

You may have only had one job but did you have any other income, even bank interest?

Well Oxford is a city, not a town.

I had this , but I only had one NI number. I did have three Unique Tax Reference numbers though! I used to find out in about April when tax offices I had never heard of contacted be with fines for not returning the Tax Return that they didn't send me. I finally got the extra numbers deleted and everything has been OK since. I did start up in a "spare time" self employed business this year though, so I will have to see if I have got another new UTR.

I can't remember whether I got a new UTR or not.

I did have a few tens of pounds of interest in those days (might have been a couple of hundreds) and a few thousand in rental income. Both of which had been fairly constant since '98.

However, the tax return came from a Hemel Hempstead tax office, where my main job was. I'd been doing tax returns every year since at least '95 and this started in '02 or '03. Checking my records and I was borderline for higher rate tax 99-00 and well into that bracket 00-01. So it's possible that I got the first request in late '02 for the 00-01 tax year.

If it was then I may be incorrect and it was a (series of) job change that triggered this. Just that the initial request came in so late that I'd been doing the job for well over a year before I got the back-dated tax return.

I thought I'd had three duplicate forms and none this year which would mean 02-05 duplicated and 05-06 not.

Tim.